Edward Snowden, in my eyes, is not a hero or a traitor. Snowden can be classified as heroic because he exposed the government and their invasive actions. Also, he is looked at as a traitor since he gave away secrets to other countries about our government.
If I had to choose between the two, I would lean toward saying that he is more in the wrong. Of course, it is great that we are aware that people are watching our every move, but should that really matter? If you are not doing anything wrong, there should be nothing to hide or be worried about. The government does not care what your weekend plans with your friends are, but rather if you are a terrorist plotting against our country.
Before he released these secrets, people already thought that they were being watched by the government; his stories just confirmed their beliefs. There has not been any recent attacks on American soil, therefore, the government must have been doing something correct. They were protecting and sifting through our actions quietly, and addressing all problems.
Also, this could affect how we deal with our foreign affairs. If we are using these methods on our enemies, they could be compromised. Snowden should have kept him mouth closed and we would not have to worry about being caught checking in on other countries.
The government is not focused on invading people's personal space. Yes, it is an invasion of privacy that all of your personal text message conversations, email, and phone calls can be listened in on, but isn't that better than allowing the enemy to sneak under the radar.
If we can pick out people of interest based off of their communications with other people, that is a win-win situation because of the greater impact it has on the world. That is the goal of the government when they go into your messages, not to embarrass you and understand your whole life.
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